The following video, that was brought to my attention from Roland Posnett, is amazing.

It shows machines future capabilities.

The footage was filmed during a presentation by Professor Raffaello D’Andrea from ETH Zurich about the future capabilities of machines that makes extensive use of flying robots (quadcopter drones).

The really impressive part (at least for me) of the “Feedback Control and the Coming Machine Revolution” presentation comes around min 19:00 when three drones throw a ball in the air and move to intercept it showing how machines can achieve together tasks beyond their individual capabilities.

Just imagine the same behaviour in those drones which provide homeland security circling over your house or hunting terrorists in theater: even if pilots will still be sitting inside a ground control station to guide them, they will be able to make fast, autonomous, efficient, cooperative decisions removing the possibility of human error and slow reaction time.

Nice (until they’ll gain self-awareness requiring a John Connor to save us all).